Editor’s note: Out of the Frying Pan is an occasional series chronicling local chef and “Top Chef” contestant Bart Vandaele’s effort to open his second D.C. restaurant.

The final hour before the opening of B Too — Bart Vandaele’s new restaurant on 14th Street NW — was part controlled chaos, part nervous tension and part relief.

Doors were set to open at 5 p.m. on May 7, which also happened to be Vandaele’s birthday. At 4:30, Vandaele was alternating between calmness as he tweaked the music volume, giddiness as he opened new glassware — “new toys for the chef,” he said — and obsessive compulsiveness as he tried in vain to clamber up on a chair and straighten a light fixture he insisted was crooked.

Snippets of English, Belgian and Spanish could be heard at any given time. Vandaele would pause between his comments to me to request another vase of flowers for an empty table. He turned glasses a hair so all the logos faced front and told kitchen staffers to redo the mise en place (ingredient layout) at their stations so it was all perfectly lined up. Managers checked and rechecked prices on the menu, ensuring everything was in order. Nearby, Vandaele’s right-hand man, Daniel Mahdavian, gave the floor staff a preopening pep talk.

“Be prepared for a night of action. Everyone is on social media, everyone tweets every mistake we make,” Mahdavian said. “We did a very good job during friends and family, but there’s a lot of room for improvement.”

Vandaele had planned to open the restaurant, his second after 9-year-old Belga Cafe on Barracks Row, by the end of 2012 — on 12/12/12, in fact — but construction delays pushed back the date. Little by little, B Too will add more service during the next month. First weekend brunch, then a late night menu, then lunch.

“We’re taking it very day by day,” said Vandaele. “I don’t want to burn anyone out.”

With that, the restaurant’s first paying customers — Neal Stephen and his young son, Ean, who purported to love waffles — walked in the door. And it was go time.